It's too early to make tier lists I'd say. Sure, there is a guide written by the tournament players that helped playtest the game, but true balance is something you need hundreds of players and a lot of time to figure out.

This is probably the first fighting game i've ever played that has a story that makes sense.Though they had to start it over to do it. They tower, minigames, different fighting modes give it a lot more variety than most games.I gotta ask though escapistmagazine.com... When a game is on both 360 and ps3 do you EVER review it on the ps3? Cuz it seems like you don't. No matter what.

Uh, why? Admittedly, my fighting game tastes tend more toward the Guilty Gear/Blazblue realm, (with the exception of Soul Calibur which will ALWAYS be my favorite fighter of all time) but I don't really see what my gender has to do with it.

anotherdaydown:MK through UMK3 are some my favorite games of all time. I was at the arcade as much as possible when those were out. I am pretty stoked at the job they've done with the latest effort. This really is a great game. The only glaring error I found in the review is the mention of all characters being available at start. You have to unlock Cyber Sub-Zero and Quan Chi. I also believe the fatalities in this game are easier than ever to pull off.

Well Susan i know you are a gamer and all....but just opening the Mortal Kombat review and hearing a female voice i dont know....Your reaction to the fatality was cute...but i guess thats the issue :DYour not suppose to be all cute and cuddly in mortal kombat...id expect F bombs and disturbing comments about how you gona pwn your opponent :D

Yossarian1507:Finally. I was really worried there would be no MK review at all.

So... Glad to hear it's good, but I have one important question - how's the balance? Is there any overpowered character, or one who you shouldn't even bother playing with? It's important to me, because every time I pick up a fighter, it turns out I'm taking the crappiest guy of the bunch (Anji Mito in GG, Tager in BlazBlue [although I managed to skill up with him, so at least I'm able to beat up my friends and sometimes even compete on-line], Rock in Soul Calibur III & IV etc.)

There are a few unbalanced characters online. I find Smoke, Scorpion and even Sub-Zero really cheap. The first two more than the third. They are the noob characters of the game with really really really easy moves. Sub-Zero just pisses me off because his play style is so easy to get abused against. An in all, it's good. Also, be prepared to face very very very cheap players in ranked games, they will do anything to win. I/e spam one move.

I freaking love this game. It's the most fun I've had with a fighting game since my awe at the funfest that was Street Fighter IV. Basically combine what SFIV did for Street Fighter and do it with the MK series and you get what everyone wants: back to the beginning, cut out the lame characters that nobody likes (Remember Dairou and Hsu Hao? Me neither, nobody liked them), and recreate what everyone loved all those years ago with modern technology.However, I will agree that some of the character models are pretty ugly. Then again, that's okay with me half the time because my favorites are Scorpion, Reptile, Ermac and Baraka, and they're all supposed to be freaking ugly. I'm glad I preordered it, as I love Scorpion's classic skin and fatality.Although, the prize for beating the challenge tower is pretty lame. A skimpier costume for Mileena? I didn't think she could have a skimpier costume! How is that possible?Oh, wait. She's wearing like 2 bandages. Never mind.Also, I'm glad that the little "TOASTY!" Dan Forden guy is back. He made everything so fun.

Yossarian1507:Finally. I was really worried there would be no MK review at all.

So... Glad to hear it's good, but I have one important question - how's the balance? Is there any overpowered character, or one who you shouldn't even bother playing with? It's important to me, because every time I pick up a fighter, it turns out I'm taking the crappiest guy of the bunch (Anji Mito in GG, Tager in BlazBlue [although I managed to skill up with him, so at least I'm able to beat up my friends and sometimes even compete on-line], Rock in Soul Calibur III & IV etc.)

It's impossible to make any comments on balance yet since the game hasn't been out long enough and tiers and such only really become relevant at really high levels of play. From my experience though, the game is fairly balanced because most characters have the same basic tools and projectiles aren't the huge deal that they are in say SFIV. That being said, characters with a quick dependable teleport you can use to to punish from any range have a little bit of an edge.

EDIT: The only characters I actively dislike right now are Kano (because his inputs are just weird) and Kitana.

Also. I'm a fellow Tager player and hey, at least he's better than Rachel.

The only class that is unbalanced is Baraka he is the worst of all the fighters (sorry Baraka fans). He has a weak pop up and his most damaging combo is around 20% compared to other fighters that can do more.

I think i was twelve when i first played Mortal Kombat and MK2, it was one of the first games i ever played. Ahh, nostalgia. Years later i was outraged to hear that others were outraged by the violence. For me it was clear as day that it was fantasy and nothing else. Anyway, nice to hear they finally made a good one.

Azmael Silverlance:Well Susan i know you are a gamer and all....but just opening the Mortal Kombat review and hearing a female voice i dont know....Your reaction to the fatality was cute...but i guess thats the issue :DYour not suppose to be all cute and cuddly in mortal kombat...id expect F bombs and disturbing comments about how you gona pwn your opponent :D

I am always cute and cuddly. It cannot be helped! Well, except when playing Lego Star Wars: The Clone Wars...then I scare my dog.

Azmael Silverlance:Well Susan i know you are a gamer and all....but just opening the Mortal Kombat review and hearing a female voice i dont know....Your reaction to the fatality was cute...but i guess thats the issue :DYour not suppose to be all cute and cuddly in mortal kombat...id expect F bombs and disturbing comments about how you gona pwn your opponent :D

I am always cute and cuddly. It cannot be helped! Well, except when playing Lego Star Wars: The Clone Wars...then I scare my dog.

I would put Kratos at least in the mid, he can be devestating once you learn his tricks

Captcha: Furequ princplzesk

It would help if he could had moves that had decent startup, mixup, good projectiles, decent wake-up or a lot of stuff. His saving grace is his damage is really good (50-60% per combo). But outside of that, Kratos is really bad right now. I'd care more if he wasn't tourney banned for being a console specific character. Sort of a waste of space. Cool stage though.

Nice touch with the Mortal Kombat theme, that's going to be stuck in my head for a while.

I have to wonder, though, if you're not a fan of fighting games, or playing them competitively, would you still recommend getting Mortal Kombat? I'd imagine it wouldn't be the hardest fighting game to get into, and the fatalities certainly help sell it.

Azmael Silverlance:Well Susan i know you are a gamer and all....but just opening the Mortal Kombat review and hearing a female voice i dont know....Your reaction to the fatality was cute...but i guess thats the issue :DYour not suppose to be all cute and cuddly in mortal kombat...id expect F bombs and disturbing comments about how you gona pwn your opponent :D

I am always cute and cuddly. It cannot be helped! Well, except when playing Lego Star Wars: The Clone Wars...then I scare my dog.

HHahaahahaha. Oh I'm sorry I just -HAHAHAAHAAHA.

DEAD TO ME.

Jumplion:Nice touch with the Mortal Kombat theme, that's going to be stuck in my head for a while.

I have to wonder, though, if you're not a fan of fighting games, or playing them competitively, would you still recommend getting Mortal Kombat? I'd imagine it wouldn't be the hardest fighting game to get into, and the fatalities certainly help sell it.

Getting it? Probably not. But I'd at least rent it, especially if you have an equally noobtastic friend to play it with. You'll have a load of fun pulling X-ray moves on each other and doing the Test Your Luck mode.

Jumplion:Nice touch with the Mortal Kombat theme, that's going to be stuck in my head for a while.

I have to wonder, though, if you're not a fan of fighting games, or playing them competitively, would you still recommend getting Mortal Kombat? I'd imagine it wouldn't be the hardest fighting game to get into, and the fatalities certainly help sell it.

Definitely. The story mode alone is amazing. Every time you encounter a new character, get into an argument with a random person, you settle it with a FIGHT! I was expecting a really cheesy story, but I found the story to be really enjoyable with an unexpected turn of events.

And there's enough extras in this game to warrant the damningly expensive price tag, $80 (canadian dollars) ... seriously?

Azmael Silverlance:Well Susan i know you are a gamer and all....but just opening the Mortal Kombat review and hearing a female voice i dont know....Your reaction to the fatality was cute...but i guess thats the issue :DYour not suppose to be all cute and cuddly in mortal kombat...id expect F bombs and disturbing comments about how you gona pwn your opponent :D

I am always cute and cuddly. It cannot be helped! Well, except when playing Lego Star Wars: The Clone Wars...then I scare my dog.

So....your dog is not bothered by guts and broken bones....but LEGO cubes and his owner freak him out? o.O

I have to wonder, though, if you're not a fan of fighting games, or playing them competitively, would you still recommend getting Mortal Kombat? I'd imagine it wouldn't be the hardest fighting game to get into, and the fatalities certainly help sell it.

Getting it? Probably not. But I'd at least rent it, especially if you have an equally noobtastic friend to play it with. You'll have a load of fun pulling X-ray moves on each other and doing the Test Your Luck mode.

May go for a rental if I have the spare time, though I usually prefer to buy it. Dunno, feels more legitimate if I buy it with cold hard cash.

I am always cute and cuddly. It cannot be helped! Well, except when playing Lego Star Wars: The Clone Wars...then I scare my dog.

HHahaahahaha. Oh I'm sorry I just -HAHAHAAHAAHA.

DEAD TO ME.

Jumplion:Nice touch with the Mortal Kombat theme, that's going to be stuck in my head for a while.

I have to wonder, though, if you're not a fan of fighting games, or playing them competitively, would you still recommend getting Mortal Kombat? I'd imagine it wouldn't be the hardest fighting game to get into, and the fatalities certainly help sell it.

Getting it? Probably not. But I'd at least rent it, especially if you have an equally noobtastic friend to play it with. You'll have a load of fun pulling X-ray moves on each other and doing the Test Your Luck mode.

I also wasn't expecting to hear a pretty voice for this game. But that made the review even more interesting and made me remember my sister throwing spears with Scorpion in the first MK.

A gruesome scene turned cute by the voice.

Ah the days with friends without command lists trying to guess fatalities...

I dont like when reviews get plot wrong. Raiden did not recieve a vision of what happens if Earthrealm loses the 10th tournament. It shows what happens if everything happens as the previous 7 MKs showed. The opening scene is the end of Mortal Kombat: Armaggeddon aka MK7.Raiden just THINKS it is about the tournament.

spacewalker:So, what you brake somones limbs or rip out their organs and it dosent hamper them at all? you stab somone in the brain or shatter their spine, and they still wont die until their hp runs out?

edit: i get that it wants to be over the top and fun cool looking fights, but i feel that i would have a hard time ignoring this.

Almost every shooter ever. Why can you run around after being shot more than once?What MK does with surviving wounds is far from new, and its about fun, not realism. Mortal Kombat never pretended to be realistic.

Saelune:I dont like when reviews get plot wrong. Raiden did not recieve a vision of what happens if Earthrealm loses the 10th tournament. It shows what happens if everything happens as the previous 7 MKs showed. The opening scene is the end of Mortal Kombat: Armaggeddon aka MK7.Raiden just THINKS it is about the tournament.

Saelune:I dont like when reviews get plot wrong. Raiden did not recieve a vision of what happens if Earthrealm loses the 10th tournament. It shows what happens if everything happens as the previous 7 MKs showed. The opening scene is the end of Mortal Kombat: Armaggeddon aka MK7.Raiden just THINKS it is about the tournament.

You realize they don't say that because it SPOILS the story, right?

No. It doesnt. It was a stated fact way before it came out, and if you played MK1-7 you would know that. AND the opening movie of story mode shows the end results of Armaggeddon. It is only a spoiler for new people. I assure you, there are some major spoilers I could give that even as a huge MK fan was surprised by.

Saelune:I dont like when reviews get plot wrong. Raiden did not recieve a vision of what happens if Earthrealm loses the 10th tournament. It shows what happens if everything happens as the previous 7 MKs showed. The opening scene is the end of Mortal Kombat: Armaggeddon aka MK7.Raiden just THINKS it is about the tournament.

You realize they don't say that because it SPOILS the story, right?

No. It doesnt. It was a stated fact way before it came out, and if you played MK1-7 you would know that. AND the opening movie of story mode shows the end results of Armaggeddon. It is only a spoiler for new people. I assure you, there are some major spoilers I could give that even as a huge MK fan was surprised by.

So your logic is that if you read reviews beforehand and played all the other games it doesn't spoil?It doesn't specifically say in the opening cutscene that the events occurring are after Armageddon all you see is ol' funny hat being beaten up. It also DEFINITELY does not say what 'he must win' means and up until a certain point in the story it's reasonable for anyone who hasn't played much MK to think that 'he must win' means exactly what Raiden thinks it does.